Isaiah 9:1-4
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." A word of hope for a land where Israel (Samaria) and Syria had fought most of their major battles in the past and were about to fight (or had already begun fighting) Judah without regard for the good of the people who called that land home.

Psalm 27:1, 4-9 (UMH 758)
This Psalm works as a response to the first reading if we join it as a prayer of those who live in a "land of deep darkness." With the sung response, sing the psalm to Tone 2 in D minor or another minor key setting.

1 Corinthians 1:10
Paul says, "I appeal to you ... that there be no divisions among you ... be united in the same mind and the same purpose. ... Has Christ been divided?"

Matthew 4:12-23
Jesus begins to announce the kingdom of God by the Sea of Galilee, healing, teaching, and calling fishermen to be his disciples.

Remember, the texts in this Season after Epiphany are divided into two streams (OT/Gospel and Epistle) with one purpose: to prepare your congregation for its work of walking with people preparing for baptism or reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant during Lent. The Epistle stream focuses on being or becoming healthy as the body of Christ. The OT/Gospel stream, centered in the gospel reading for each Sunday, focuses on the calling and teaching of disciples of Jesus. Choose and pursue the stream that seems most helpful for your congregation to get ready for its Lenten work of forming disciples of Jesus Christ readied to live the baptismal covenant faithfully. For more discussion of these two series or streams, see Planning for the Season after Epiphany 2014.

February 9Scouting Ministries Sunday
(While the program calendar provides for dates in both February and March, the February date is preferred to avoid conflicting with Lent. Congregations may choose any date for this observance.)

Background: The Significance of “Galilee of the Gentiles”
This week’s reading from Isaiah may seem very familiar, not only because the text itself is familiar, but also because part of this same text was included in the first reading for Christmas Eve just one month ago. On Christmas Eve, it is paired with the reading from Luke describing the birth of Jesus and the coming of the shepherds. On Christmas Eve, we hear this text describe Jesus as the light in the darkness, a child born for us who will deliver us from bondage and uphold the kingdom forever, with emphasis on the birth of the child.

Today, however, a shorter selection from the same text (verses 1-4) supports this week’s Gospel in making a different point. While Luke quotes Isaiah in connection with the birth of Jesus, Matthew quotes this same text to proclaim the prophetic significance of the beginning, the primary location, and the major theme of his public ministry. Light begins to dawn now that Jesus has headed directly into “Galilee of the Gentiles,” the region controlled by the tetrarch Herod, who had just arrested John the Baptizer.

Jesus going to Galilee thus has a two-fold purpose. First, it is a fulfillment of this text from Isaiah. Light does shine precisely in this region formerly known as the tribal lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, places where Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel had fought their wars so “nothing important” was disturbed, and places later that became the target of “ethnic dilution campaigns” of one conqueror of Palestine after another. Keep the mix of languages and cultures there mixed enough, and oppressed enough, and no one of them will have the strength or the urge to resist the new overlords. This is why this place was known to Isaiah as “the land of deep darkness,” and this is why it still had that nickname in the time of Jesus. If light is to shine in deep darkness, this is where Jesus must go.

But in the narrative itself, we see how this place continues to live up to its ancient reputation. The darkness at the heart of Galilee wasn’t satisfied to keep to its own borders. The tetrarch Herod, like his namesake who ruled at the time of Jesus’ birth, was noted for over-extending his power. John the Baptizer lived and worked primarily in Judea, not Galilee. Despite the fact that John was openly critical of Herod’s taking the wife of his dead brother as his own wife, Herod had no real jurisdiction over John. And yet he had John arrested, jailed, and later, we learn, beheaded in Galilee.

That John was arrested and taken to a dungeon in Galilee becomes part of why Jesus headed there, too. He was not running away from Herod, as the phrase “he withdrew into Galilee” (fairly common in English translations) may suggest. A better translation would be something like “he made his home in that region again.” Galilee became “home base” for Jesus’ public ministry not just because an old prophet said so, but because the people there, governed by a man like Herod who had sought to silence John, desperately needed good news.

And that is what Jesus began to give them. Verse 17 represents the core of every sermon, every teaching and every action Jesus took in his public ministry there. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven [God] has drawn near.” (Matthew uses “heaven” in place of “God,” a sign of his Jewish heritage in what is unarguably the most Jewish of the gospels).

Calling of Disciples, Part 2: Follow Me
All of that is backdrop for what happens next, and centrally, for this time in the Season after Epiphany: the calling of the first disciples by Jesus.

As we noted last week, this calling story varies significantly in detail from the calling story we read just last week in John’s gospel.

The place is different. Last week, we were across the Jordan near Judea. This week, we are up north in Galilee.

The timing is different. Last week, John the Baptizer was still active in ministry. This week, he has been arrested by Herod and taken north to Galilee.

And the story of how the calling proceeds, particularly with Peter and Andrew, is dramatically different. Last week Andrew and another person, unnamed (presumably the gospel writer, John) simply begin following Jesus, and perhaps later that evening or the next day Andrew “drags” his brother Peter to become one of Jesus’ disciples, too. Here, Jesus is walking along the shoreline, spies Simon Peter and Andrew fishing in the lake, and calls them both at once, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” (v. 19). A little later he repeats the same process with two other fishermen, also brothers, James and John (v. 21).

Call, and immediate response. The word comes, and they all leave their livelihoods and families, everything and everyone they’ve got, and with James and John, and become disciples of Jesus, on the spot.

Why would they do that? Why would they leave nets, boats, livelihoods and family at the simplest of calls from Jesus? “Follow me!” It’s not because these men were especially sensitive to the voice of God or Jesus. Their dullness, resistance, contradiction of his teaching, denial and desertion of him later on show their level of faith wasn’t all that special, either.

What was special was Jesus’ message, a message he’d been proclaiming in the area already for a while before he called them: “The kingdom of God has drawn near” (v. 17). If that message were true, if Jesus were right about that, that’s a message worth leaving everything for. Why wouldn’t you want to be in on the ground floor of what would happen next?

Now remember where this is happening. Galilee of the Gentiles. Land of deep darkness. Lands ravaged by outside forces, people treated as worthless. Jesus is declaring the kingdom of God drawing near here, right here, light in the darkness.

If the prophet’s words were ringing in their ears as Matthew rings them in ours, how could they do anything but follow Jesus?

And this brings us to the missional task for this season. How do you prepare yourselves to nurture people hearing a call like that of Jesus—simply, “Follow me” – toward a life shaped by such following the rest of their days?
As we’ve already seen, such a radical following of such a radical calling, a command performance -- if you will -- from Jesus, is not the only way the call to discipleship comes.
But it is one of them.
And it was the form in which it came to those fishermen in Galilee of the Gentiles—people dependent on the sea for life, because on land there was little to hope for.

Except now that they would follow Jesus, they’d be spending much more time learning what it means to be light in the deep darkness of that place, and every darkened corner of the earth, with him.

In Your Planning Team
Last week, you started this six-week series on the calling and teaching of disciples by Jesus. This week, you are in week two of exploring the ways Jesus calls people to discipleship. Last week, it was seeking and assimilation. This week, it is preaching and direct call, or “command performance” as I suggest in the commentary above.

In today’s world, Christianity is in a fairly precipitous decline in “prosperous” regions of the world that once had been the chief sources of the faith’s worldwide missionary effort. By contrast, it is on a dramatic rise in parts of the world that are far less prosperous, areas one might call “lands of deep darkness.” In the US, nearly all Christian bodies are declining in numbers, regardless of their place on the “theological spectrum.” But in Africa and Asia, the rate of the growth of Christianity far outpaces losses in the rest of the world. This is why The United Methodist Church actually grew by 25% between 1999-2009, and remains on an increasing growth pace worldwide, just not in the US or some parts of Europe.

Jesus began his public ministry precisely in a land of deep darkeness, in a place so troubled for so long that many chose to write it off. The spark of hope he ignited in the coming of God’s kingdom, there, among them, blazed into a conflagration.

So he could and did call seemingly random fishermen to follow him, and they did.

And so his call to discipleship is still issued today, and many still forsake all and follow.

Today is about that experience of calling to discipleship by such people.

While their calling and response is no more and no less genuine than that portrayed by Andrew and Simon in the stories we read last week, theirs are stories that need to be told in worship today, precisely because there are so many today who are regularly responding to such a call from Jesus and his church. After all, Jesus promised to make Andrew and Simon “fishers of people.”

So, begin in your team. Are there persons in your worship planning team whose call to discipleship to Jesus came like that to Andrew and Simon, James and John? Invite them to share their stories.

Then, are there people you or they know, either in your congregation or in their wider social networks, who have such a calling story they may be willing to share? Identify these people, and send members of your planning team to gather their stories on video, audio or writing, and, of course, permission to share them in worship or through your congregation’s website.

Today is the day to hear and celebrate this way of being called to discipleship to Jesus, not denigrating the others, and to pray for the openness yourselves, as a congregation, both to hear and to embrace others who hear this call as well.

Again, plan artwork, projected imagery, and congregational or choral/ensemble singing that lifts up this way of being called to discipleship, and resonates with the stories being shared in your midst. Sermon today may be just enough to help set up the stories. Let the stories speak for themselves.

And remember this from Matthew and Isaiah. This kind of story happens precisely in places of deep darkness.

And here, by the Sea of Galilee.

Consider how sights, sounds and smells of the sea, or whatever waters you regularly encounter, might be incorporated in worship today. Here’s a reflection to help get you started.

Today is a day to hear the waters flowing:
The waters of the sea of Galilee full of fish,
a reminder of the places around you
full of people to be caught up
in the love of God,
not with hooks, one by one,
but with nets, en masse,
as those first fisher-disciples would have known.

Today is a day to hear the waters flowing:
The waters that move through pipes,
Some waters fresh, some polluted,
Some falling from the sky, some rising from the earth,
Waters bringing life and hope,
Waters bearing waste and loss,
Waters cleansing and being cleansed.

Today is a day to hear the waters flowing:
The waters of baptism with which God birthed you,
Birthed us all anew in Jesus Christ,
And bids us come, and drink,
To slake our thirst,
And bids us go and share,
That thirst may be fulfilled for all.

Today is a day for hearing Christ’s call,
like those fishermen heard Jesus calling long ago—
to hear and to decide:
are we ready to follow Jesus,
ready to declare his truth,
rejoice in his love,
and reveal his glory in the world?

Week 2: No Factions: Your Fellowship Is in Christ
Many, if not most, approaches to addressing problems begin with identifying the problem and focusing on fixing what is broken. Paul did not use that approach in I Corinthians, despite the reality the problems there were serious, indeed. Instead, as we saw last week, Paul began by identifying the sources of giftedness and strength the community possessed thanks to the gracious and abundant provision of God.

Then, and only then, did he get the to core challenge this community was facing. “Now, I appeal to you” he says. You have these gifts, these sources of strength. Now use them to God’s glory, and trust in the strength already given you to address these vexing and serious problems that threaten your witness, your mission, and even your continued existence as a community in Jesus Christ.

Paul is not shy about naming the core issue they are facing, right off the bat: Factionalism. They have divvied themselves up into little factions based on which leaders they preferred.

You don’t know any Christian communities where that still happens, do you?

Maybe this is not the core challenge to your witness and mission as body of Christ in your setting. There may be other things. Paul was not at all saying this is the only or the worst possible challenge a Christian community could face. Nor was he saying this was the only problem in Corinth. (You will see many more in the following weeks!) Rather, he was identifying it as the core issue that Corinth certainly faced when he was writing to them. Whatever else they may have had to deal with, first of all, they had to remember that they were, by God’s grace and baptism in water and Spirit, made onebody in Jesus Christ, not a grouping of political factions who happen to worship and perhaps engage in some forms of missional activity together.

What makes for unity? Is it the entire absence of all conflict? Hardly! Conflict is healthy and a sign of health. We cannot grow and we cannot engage in God’s mission without both encountering and to some degree stimulating conflict. What makes for unity isn’t the absence of conflict.

The problem wasn’t conflict per se. It was factions. End factions, Paul told them. Be done with such things. Rejoice in your diversity, but play on the same team, having the same mind and the same purpose (v. 10), and being informed by the same wisdom, the wisdom of the cross (v. 18), which you will help unpack in worship next Sunday.

Your fellowship is not in factions, or in favored leaders.

Your fellowship, as the body of Christ, is in Christ himself.

In Your Planning Team

Last week you may have included in your worship space signs of the strengths and giftedness present in your congregation and community. Leave those signs in place! This week, add to them signs or symbols of the core challenge or challenges you are facing as a congregation.

A word to the wise. Don’t decide what that core challenge is yourself (pastor!) or as a worship planning team and then impose that decision on the congregation. Do this, and you may be creating factions yourselves!

Instead, all of you start listening widely. Go and ask as many different people in your congregation what you believe your core challenge is. Don’t prime or pre-load the questions! Listen for ways people naturally describe the core challenge or challenges you seem to be facing. Take a few weeks to do this. As you listen, feed back to folks what you think you’re hearing and let them help you name it accurately. Maybe even consider inviting some of them to help you make the signs or images you will add today.
Use this text as an occasion to admit that the challenge you name is real, as well as to confess that the power of God revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ is more than able to help you move from fear and anxiety to confidence and trust in God and one another—even where you may express sharp disagreements with one another.

You are a spiritual community. You are empowered by the Spirit. You are no less than the body of Christ who is not divided and will not be divided by us except to make us one in him around His table.

If you celebrate Holy Communion today, do so not simply remembering what Christ has done in the past, but the power he gives us now to keep on being his body, united in him, blessed by the Spirit and addressing your actual challenges in community and mission with God.

Embodying the Word: "Collecting" for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

OT/Gospel Stream

True Light that has come into the world,
shedding your radiance upon all you have made,
and especially upon the poorest and most oppressed:
Grant us, your disciples,
courage to walk into every darkened corner where the world fears to tread
that we may see your glory in the face of the least of these
and bear witness to them and to the world of your saving love;
through Jesus Christ,
in the power of the Spirit,
with whom we give all glory to you, now and ever. Amen.

Epistle Stream

Blessed, dear Uniting Love,
who has given us abundant gifts to accomplish your will:
Grant that we, Christ’s body gathering in this place,
may have the courage and humility
to name what besets us,
and the confidence to trust in your power
to help us overcome it
for the sake of your kingdom and our witness;
through Jesus Christ
whose cross saves us all,
and with the Spirit who spurs us on,
we offer our lives, our hopes and our praise to you,
now and ever. Amen.

Resources in The United Methodist Book of Worship/UM Hymnal with Links to Other Suggestions

Greeting

BOW 306 (Isaiah, 1 Corinthians)

BOW 456 (Isaiah, Matthew)

Opening Prayer

BOW 459 (Isaiah, Psalm, 1 Corinthians, Matthew)

BOW 309 (Matthew)

Prayer of Confession and PardonTheinvitation (UMH 7) should precede the confession and words of pardon should follow it.

BOW 476 (Isaiah, Matthew)

BOW 488 (1 Corinthians)

BOW 492 (1 Corinthians)

Canticle

UMH 205, "Canticle of Light and Darkness" (Isaiah)

Litany of What We Can Agree To Do (1 Corinthians)This could be used following the epistle reading, as response to the sermon, or at the rear of the church as the closing action before the sending forth:

We can't do everything, but we can love.
We can't speak the final word, but we can love.
We don't quite feel like we belong, but we can love.
When better days are a faint memory, still we can love.
When we don't have the answers, still we can love.
When we can't agree about gay and straight, still we can love.
When we feel awkward and restless, still we can love.
We're frustrated with the constraints of youth and aging, but we can love now.
We let petty irritations trip us up, but we can love.
We choke on our faith songs, but we can love.
We limp in our worship and service, but we can love.
We are embarrassed at how messy our lives are, but we can love.

Here a solo voice initiates the singing of "Ubi Caritas" (TFWS 2179) and gradually the assembly joins in singing it repeatedly in the Taizé style.

Preaching

Preaching

Guest writer: Daniel OgleDuring the season after Epiphany, the preaching notes will be written by a special guest author, the Rev. Daniel Ogle. Daniel currently serves as an Associate Pastor for Connectional Ministry at Fountain City United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he provides leadership for a contemporary worship service, develops ministry with college students and young adults, and leads a communications ministry team. Prior to discerning a call to ministry, he spent five years as a sports journalist, writing for newspapers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Anderson, South Carolina.

The Rev. Dawn Chesser will return to providing the weekly notes on Ash Wednesday. In the meantime, if you have comments or questions please direct them as usual to [email protected].

The simple truth is that most Christians don’t know what to do with power. And most preachers are leery of it. We’ve seen it abused too many times by some of our more famous colleagues; we’re not sure how to harness it; and most of us wish we had the power within our congregations to get more things done.

So this week’s Old Testament lesson hits us where the Bible does its best work: where we’re uncomfortable. Because the fundamental claim the prophet is making and the central issue for the preacher this week is that God is the power source that makes all the difference.

The people have been walking in darkness and have seen a great light. It’s not a light that comes from aligning with the latest king, and it’s not a light that comes from making the best deal with the biggest nation. No, the light of liberation that the people will experience is the light that comes from the power of God. And that’s a claim that runs throughout Scripture and is old as the Bible itself:

God has the power to make real and lasting change.

God has the power to turn suffering into joy.

God has the power to turn darkness into light.

God has the power to turn oppression into freedom.

The prophet reminds the people that God’s power made a difference in Midian, and he invites them to remember that God has the power to change their situation as well. God broke the bonds of their oppressors in Egypt, and God still has that same power.

It’s as if the prophet is saying that the key to prosperity is to make a deal with the one who has the most power ­– and there will never be any deal better than the one you can make with the Lord.

We’re not always sure of God’s power and whether it’s always at work in the world. We look around and we see people in bondage. Suffering seems to be around every corner. Poverty, addiction, homelessness and despair seem to run their course in the lives of too many of our friends.

You can rest assured that each and every member of your congregation has some area of life where they feel powerless and could really use an influx of power. That’s why today’s Old Testament lesson is such a word of hope. The text is a great opportunity for the preacher to speak hope into the lives of the people in the pews.

Remind them that no matter how deep their despair, no matter how dark their situation, that the God of the Bible is a God who has the power to make a difference.

We read stories throughout Scripture in which situations seemed hopeless until God got involved and made the ultimate difference. God has even shown the power to raise Jesus from the dead, and one thing, among the many things that means for the church, is that God still has the power to change even the darkest situation.

Someone in your church may be in the darkest moment of his/her life and need a real word of hope. This is a text about power, but it’s ultimately a word of hope, because the God you and your congregation have come to worship is a God with the power to do great things.

No matter how dark it gets, we worship with the power to make a change. And there’s power in that word!

Conflict is as old as the church itself, and Paul finds himself in the middle of a good one in Corinth. The church is being threatened not by outside forces, but inside ones: questions about who is the proper leader to follow.

Paul has received reports that one of the many disagreements the Corinthians are having centers on who will lead and who can be trusted. Some want to follow Apollos, some want to follow Cephas, and still others are sticking to the leadership of Paul himself.

You might think Paul would take this opportunity to defend himself, to anoint himself as the leader who has received a vision from the Lord Jesus and is a trustworthy advisor in all matters of faith and practice.

Yet Paul doesn’t do that. And he doesn’t do that because the Corinthians are asking the wrong question. Paul doesn’t want them to line up behind human leaders. Paul wants to change the debate. Paul doesn’t want anyone pointing to Apollos, Cephas, himself or anyone else.

Instead, he points the Corinthians to Jesus, and specifically to God’s work in Jesus on the cross.

Paul believes this so much, that he’ll make a similar appeal with the Philippians.

There he calls the Philippians to be of one mind, and the one mind he wants them to have is the mind of Christ. He does so by quoting the Christ hymn in Philippians 2, pointing the people to Jesus’ example, his humility in becoming human, and most importantly his sacrifice for us on the cross.

He does this, because for Paul power in the church doesn’t come from finding the next ministerial rock star. No, Christian power is always about God’s power, and it is most fully realized on the cross.

Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo wrote a wonderfully titled book a few years ago: Adventures in Missing the Point. It grabs your attention, because as pastors and church leaders, most of us are well too aware of all the ways we can get led astray and pulled away from the point of being witnesses for what God is doing in the world.

Sometimes we get led astray over things that seem vitally important; and other times, we get in our own way because we can’t keep ourselves from wading into things that take away from the work that God has called us to.

Paul’s words invite a sermon that points a congregation not to hash out its own debates or to search for the next superstar preacher, youth director or worship leader to save their church, but to understand its life in light of the power and the revelation of the cross.

Ultimately this text is a wonderful opportunity to help your congregation reprioritize its energy and concern within its worship life.

The center of a congregation’s life and worship isn’t rooted in the things we often fight over, be it worship style, well-manicured buildings, or the latest culture war dustup.

No, the center of power and transformation in the Christian life can be found where it’s always been: at the cross.

For the second week in a row, we hear a story centered on the call of the disciples.

But the pace of the decision-making in these two call tales is widely different.

If the decision-making of John’s disciples in last week’s gospel lection is characterized by slow-play, then instantaneous decision-making is the character of the four disciples in Matthew’s Gospel.

While in last week’s lesson, the disciples of John spend the day with Jesus after a no-pressure invitation to come and see, this week we see Simon and his brother, Andrew, immediately leave their lucrative fishing boat business to get involved with what Jesus is up to. And James and John not only leave their boats, but their father in them, to follow him.

More than anything else, what we see in this call story, and the description of Jesus’ ministry that follows, is that there is something compelling about this Jesus. There is something that draws people in. There is something about him that makes them leave their families, that makes them want to not only watch what he is doing, but to become a part of it.

Jesus announces in verse 17 that “the kingdom of heaven has come near,” and Matthew will then go on to tell us what that looks like: the good news is preached, the sick are healed, the wounded are touched, and the kingdom of heaven comes near.

2013 was the year of Pope Francis. Time named him person of the year; Catholics everywhere named him an inspiration; and he seemed to win the hearts of a new Protestant at every turn. What is it about him and his ministry that connects with people, particularly young adults and millennials?

I’m sure there are lots of reasons that Francis is popular, not the least of which is his savvy with social media. But what the year of Francis reminds us is that people want to be a part of something greater than themselves.

Instead of seeing the church fractured and preoccupied with its internal politics, people want to be a part of a church that makes a difference: a church that is in life-changing ministry with the poor, that gives of itself, that knows who it is, is open to new things and new people, and ultimately takes its identity from the One who proclaimed the kingdom has come near.

What better way then to connect with people in your congregation than to invite them to be a part of a kingdom church, a church that is focused on the priorities of the kingdom?

This text cries for the preacher to name the signs of the kingdom in his or her congregation, to name the ministries of the kingdom and to invite people to move beyond what they may have been preoccupied with and to invest their time and their talents and their treasure and their lives in the ministries that show the world that the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Resources & Articles

Prayers

God of Grace and Compassion, you sent your Son into our midst that we might see his way of love, and that we might here his call to follow. Following Christ means more than wearing a label, or gathering in a certain building. It means leaving the nets that entangle us in the world’s way of measuring success and living by Christ’s example. May the gifts we lift to you this morning represent a sacrifice and commitment to be ones who walk in the way of compassion, grace, and love. We pray in the holy name of the Christ, our Example, our Hope, and our Redeemer. Amen. (Matthew 4:12-23)